l: greenwell point, nsw
c: australia
s:  winter

One early August afternoon, we set out on a little boat to harvest some pacific oysters. Oysters shucked fresh from the water right there on the boat are something else. We came back with a generous haul.

"Stuffing vegetables is a rare culinary experience in these busy days. It is time-consuming and provides pleasure that we don't often experience anymore - the kind of bliss that results from communal cooking, when time is not an object and the purpose is the process as well as the end result." - Ottolenghi. 

We passed the last town a while back. Now, as we followed the black lick of a line out deeper into the south, out to the west and into the Dumaresq Valley, we watched the landscape blur. The limbs of trees sagged heavy with prickly pear, mistletoe and wattle. We couldn’t help but forage. We stopped to pick some of each, reaching, jumping high up for the best branches and tasting the pears and their prickles on our lips. Our bounty was rich, but knowing the place and the people we were about to meet, our bounty was about to grow richer.

It’s always packed full of a surreal flavour and humming with yum. The individuals, the space, the intention, the meal. This time however, I wasn’t surrounded by the sultry late spring air of Nashville, Tennessee, or a brisk fall evening in Charleston, South Carolina. I wasn’t swinging on hammocks and looking out over the Oregon coast in Portland. I was in Sydney. And it was all the good parts of surreal. A Kinfolk Magazine dinner, no matter the location, will always make a belly grumble and a heartbeat hum.